Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
Browse the NASA APOD archive without needing the exact date first. Filter by media type and keep moving deeper into older images and videos.
Crescent Enceladus
Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of tantalizing inner moon Enceladus poses in this Cassini spacecraft image. North is up in the dramatic scene captured…
Betelgeuse Eclipsed
Asteroid 319 Leona cast a shadow across planet Earth on December 12, as it passed in front of bright star Betelgeuse . But to see everyone's favorite red giant star fade this…
Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A
Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After…
Deep Field: The Heart Nebula
What excites the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission nebula on the left, catalogued as IC 1805 , looks somewhat like a human heart . The nebula glows brightly in red light…
Aurora and Milky Way over Norway
What are these two giant arches across the sky? Perhaps the more familiar one, on the left, is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy . This grand disk of stars and nebulas here…
Big Dipper over Pyramid Mountain
When did you first learn to identify this group of stars? Although they are familiar to many people around the world, different cultures have associated this asterism with…
Pic du Pleiades
Near dawn on November 19 the Pleiades stood in still dark skies over the French Pyrenees. But just before sunrise a serendipitous moment was captured in this single 3 second…
Vega and Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks
On December 4, periodic Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks shared this telescopic field of view with Vega, alpha star of the northern constellation Lyra. Fifth brightest star in planet Earth's…
Orion and the Ocean of Storms
On December 5, 2022, a camera on board the uncrewed Orion spacecraft captured this view as Orion approached its return powered flyby of the Moon. Beyond one of Orion's extended…
Stars Versus Dust in the Carina Nebula
It's stars versus dust in the Carina Nebula and the stars are winning. More precisely, the energetic light and wind s from massive newly formed stars are evaporating and…
Energetic Particle Strikes the Earth
It was one of the most energetic particles ever known to strike the Earth -- but where did it come from? Dubbed Amaterasu after the Shinto sun goddess , this particle, as do all…
Plane Crossing Crescent Moon
No, the Moon is not a bow, and no, it did not shoot out a plane like an arrow. What is pictured is a chance superposition. The plane's contrail would normally appear white, but…
Startrails over Beijing Ancient Observatory
You can take a subway ride to visit this observatory in Beijing, China but you won't find any telescopes there. Starting in the 1400s astronomers erected devices at the Beijing…
Milky Way Rising
The core of the Milky Way is rising beyond the Chilean mountain-top La Silla Observatory in this deep night skyscape . Seen toward the constellation Sagittarius, our home galaxy's…
Artemis 1: Flight Day 13
On flight day 13 (November 28, 2022) of the Artemis I mission, the Orion spacecraft reached its maximum distance from its home world. Over 430,000 kilometers from Earth in a…
A Landspout Tornado over Kansas
Could there be a tornado inside another tornado? In general, no. OK, but could there be a tornado inside a wider dust devil ? No again, for one reason because tornados comes down…
Ganymede from Juno
What does the largest moon in the Solar System look like? Jupiter 's moon Ganymede , larger than even Mercury and Pluto , has an icy surface speckled with bright young craters…
LBN 86: The Eagle Ray Nebula
This eagle ray glides across a cosmic sea. Officially cataloged as SH2-63 and LBN 86 , the dark nebula is composed of gas and dust that just happens to appear shaped like a common…
A Dust Jet from the Surface of Comet 67P
Where do comet tails come from? There are no obvious places on the nuclei of comets from which the jets that create comet tails emanate. In 2016, though, ESA's Rosetta spacecraft…
Little Planet Aurora
Immersed in an eerie greenish light, this rugged little planet appears to be home to stunning water falls and an impossibly tall mountain. It's planet Earth of course. On the…
Stereo Jupiter near Opposition
Jupiter looks sharp in these two rooftop telescope images . Both were captured on November 17 from Singapore, planet Earth, about two weeks after Jupiter's 2023 opposition .…
Along the Taurus Molecular Cloud
The cosmic brush of star formation composed this interstellar canvas of emission, dust, and dark nebulae. A 5 degree wide telescopic mosaic, it frames a region found north of…
IC 342: Hidden Galaxy in Camelopardalis
Similar in size to large, bright spiral galaxies in our neighborhood, IC 342 is a mere 10 million light-years distant in the long-necked, northern constellation Camelopardalis . A…
Fleming's Triangular Wisp
These chaotic and tangled filaments of shocked, glowing gas are spread across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus as part of the Veil Nebula . The Veil Nebula…
Viewing discoveries from 16 December 2023 through 21 November 2023.